by Joshua David
The radio overhead blared out the familiar voice of the DJ from the area’s only radio station.
“Folks, this is the Wildman here, playing only the hits on K101 The Hits FM!” He said and then another song started up. Richard walked to the stands of fruit.
He was bagging up a few oranges, when he suddenly felt as though he was being watched. The hairs on his neck began to stand up on end and his cheeks flushed a little. He caught a glimpse of an old woman staring at him in the corner of his eye, as he hesitantly turned in her direction he could have sworn that her face was like a dark black pool, like the surface of a rippling lake at nighttime, yet when he faced her directly and made eye contact, her face had solidified and she appeared normal. Still old and ugly, but wholly human.
Even still, her features were troubling to Richard and he instantly wanted to turn away. She sneered at Richard with crooked yellow teeth and a raised lip like an angry dog. There were black halo shaped patches surrounding her eyes making her look like some sort of zombie. She stood there hunched over with osteoporosis, yet leaning forward on the balls of her feet as though she was ready to attack if Richard made the wrong move.
A manager came over and made brief conversation with her, Richard imagined him telling her to stand down, because her demeanor quickly changed and her posture shifted back to that of a casual shopper. The manager left and the woman returned her wretched gaze back toward Richard.
He turned not wanting to face her any longer, and walked quickly the opposite way down the aisle to the end where he tucked behind a large stack of soda boxes and listened. From here he could hear her shuffling quietly down the aisle toward him, and somewhere, under the sound of her old slippered feet sliding across the tile floor of the supermarket, an almost inaudible sound of bubbling water coming from what he could only imagine was the surface of her face.
Richard panicked and dropped his basket. He ran to the next aisle, but quickly decided to put several additional aisles between himself and the creature that had detected him.
He breathed a little easier knowing that he was now several aisles down from this danger. He briefly considered the possibility of darting back to get his oranges, but decided it would be too risky and thought a better plan might be to lure the alien sentry over to the meat market and then give her the slip so that he could race back and collect a new sack of oranges from the produce section.
He now found himself on the pet food aisle, an aisle he had never really ventured down since he did not own a pet. He walked cautiously toward the other end, pausing every couple of seconds to check over his shoulder to see if he was being followed.
“Hey!” A voice suddenly called out to him. “Hey you, get over here!”
Richard was about to run again, when he recognized the voice as that of Steven’s. It was coming from between two stacks of dog food. All of the pet food was stacked high on an industrial grade metal shelf. Behind the stacks, Richard could see that there was a dark space between the food and the wall, and now within that darkness, appeared the silhouette of a man.
“I said get over here!”
As he went toward the shadow, Richard peered in as if squinting might somehow cast more light on this mysterious figure.
“Don’t you pretend for a second that you don’t know who I am. You’d just be wasting time and risking both our lives in the process.”
Steven’s gruff, no nonsense voice was unmistakable. When Richard reached the dog food, he glanced around to see if he was being watched and then pretended to be inspecting the fine print of the bag. ‘Man’s Best Friend: select grade puppy chow’ the bag read. ‘Now with real beefy chunks’.
“What did you say to your new friend, the Doctor?”
“Excuse me?”
“Don’t play dumb Rich, I know that you talked to the doctor at the clinic today and I know that you told him about me. All I need to know is what exactly you told him and why you would expose me like that?”
“We… we were sharing information… It was confidential. No one knows.”
“I’m sure that’s what they told you. They’ll tell you anything to get you talking.”
“They?”
“Yea, the good doctor is one of them too. You don’t see it yet, but the more we press them, the more they’ll be exposed and we won’t be alone in this fight anymore. What information did they share with you? Maybe it will help us get at them.”
Richard felt in his jacket pocket , unbuttoned it, and pulled out the yellow sheet of paper. He unfolded it and pressed it against a bag of dog food to flatten it out as much as possible before handing it into the shadows to Steven.
There was the sound of paper in the darkness as Steven undoubtedly was inspecting the schedule.
“Is this what I think it is?” Steven asked, his disappointment could be felt through the darkness.
“Yes, it’s the unofficial version though,” Richard defended. “It could change without notice… It’s stamped too.”
“You traded information about me for a lunch calendar?”
“It’s unofficial, that’s why it’s yellow.”
“I don’t care why it’s yellow, Richard, it’s a dinky lunch schedule!” Steven shouted loudly. “They’ve got you figured out man! You’re an imbecile… They tricked you Rich. I can’t believe it, you let them trick you.”
Richard could hear the crumpling of the lunch schedule and then Steven threw it out at him in a yellow wad that bounced off Richard’s chest and onto the floor.
“You probably gave them everything they wanted too. What’d you tell them?”
“Nothing really, we just talked.”
“Yea, you must have said something, told them something Richard.” Steven yelled. “You told them something about me, because I’ve got eyes my way like I’ve never had Rich. You traded details about me, exposed me Richard! For a blasted lunch schedule!… And you don’t even eat there!”
Richard saw that the manager had heard the commotion and was now at the head of the aisle looking his way. He stepped to the side as if comparing prices of feed. He even looked up at the top shelf as if considering the value of purchasing his nonexistent K9 companion a “Toasty-Pup” igloo house.
“Shhh,” Richard spouted talking from the side of his mouth. “You’re making a scene.”
Suddenly the manager was advancing his way evidently suspicious of his shopping habits.
“Excuse me Sir,” The manager said in a professional yet stern sounding voice. “Is there anything that I can help you with?”
Richard gave his best attempt at an innocent, ‘who me?’ look.
“No, I’m just looking…” and if Richard had just stopped there, he may have been in the clear, because the manager began nodding, but he had to add, “I’m considering the ratios of beef content between these two brands.” The manager kept nodding, but Richard could tell that he was now trying to conceal the fact that he was considering the ratio of bull crap that Richard contained.
“Oh, ok…well then do let me know if you need any assistance Sir.” The manager said as he issued a thumbs up in Richards direction. “Oh and if you end up needing something from the top shelf, please come and get a store attendant. You enjoy your day Sir.”
“Yes, thank you,” Richard nodded as cordially as possible. “And you do the same…General Manager Brian.” Richard read from the manager’s name badge.
The manager walked away toward the other end of the aisle, gave Richard one last glance, and then disappeared down another aisle to attend to other shoppers.
“I have to lay low for awhile. They’ll be looking for me, you should do the same. We could leave town for a few days.” Steven said encouragingly.
“No, I can’t. If I don’t show up for work tomorrow, my boss will call Dr. Hays they’ll be looking for me.”
“You’re right, you should probably act normal to keep a low profile.”
Suddenly they heard the unmistakable shuffling noise of the old lady as she
came around the corner. She stopped and stared at Richard who looked back at her with hate filled eyes. Her own eyes were barely visible within the dark outlines of their sockets. She began to sneer at Richard once more.
Richard turned back toward the darkened space where Steven was hiding.
“I’m sorry for doubting you Steven, I want you to know that I’m in this now and I’ll help you however I can.”
“It’s good to know I have an ally…” Steven said in his low voice, all anger had been erased. “She’s going to flip alien any second, Rich. You need to get out of here now, I’ll create a diversion and I’ll contact you again when I can.”
Richard nodded.
“Run!!” Steven yelled as he pushed over the stack of Man’s Best Friend Gravy Blend, two of the bags from the top split open explosively when they hit the tile floor. Richard stood there in the ankle deep tide of tiny dog food pebbles as the manager came back around the corner and stood at the old lady’s side. Her eyes now spiraled with the black liquid sending shivers down Richard's back. Then he bolted away in the opposite direction.
He sprinted quickly back to the produce dodging shopping carts and shoppers. He tore a plastic bag from the roll next to the citrus stand and frantically filled another bag of oranges. Then as he ran toward the entrance he fished a five dollar bill out of his front pocket and threw it at the cashier as he passed, the electronic doors chiming as he found freedom in the outside.
He ran back around the store and into the alley from which he had come. When he was a safe distance down the alley, he turned and looked back to see if he was being followed. He saw no one there and decided that he could slow to a jog.
He jogged all the way to his block and then stopped near some bushes to make sure his apartment building wasn’t being watched. Finally when he thought the coast was clear, he slipped into the front door of his apartment building. He peered out of the glass momentarily again to make sure that he had not been trailed. Then he scaled the three flights of stairs, two stairs at a time up to his apartment. He double checked the knob to make sure it was still locked, then he unlocked it and entered, shutting and locking it behind him.
Chapter 4 : The Getaway
Upon turning back to his apartment, Richard was terrified to see that the balcony door was ajar. He stood there motionless, looking and listening for signs and sounds of an intruder. He heard someone in the kitchen.
He curled the top of the bag of oranges around his hand making a citrus mace, ready to brain whoever was moving about the kitchen. Then he advanced ninja like through the living room.
“Freeze!!” He yelled as he pounced out from behind the living room wall in a stance ready to attack the intruder.
A man was standing in the kitchen preparing something at the counter. He was facing the far wall of the kitchen, and Richard couldn’t see his face. The intruder stopped what he was doing and froze in place.
“Show me your hands!” Richard yelled from the entry of the kitchen.
Slowly, the intruder raised his hands, revealing that he was wearing a pair of yellow kitchen gloves.
“Easy does it Richard…” Steven said as he stood there facing the countertop and the back wall of the kitchen. “It’s just me Pal.”
“Steven?!” Richard’s voice broke with nerves. “I could have killed you!”
“You could have killed me?… with a bag of oranges, yea…” Steven said sarcastically.
“But how did you?”
“I have ways Richard, but now’s not the time to get into it.”
“But I jogged almost the whole way here, I took the quickest route, how did you beat me?…” Richard was puzzled. “Plus, I’m sweating like a pig, I’m winded and my sides are killing me, you’re not even breathing heavy.” Richard tossed the oranges on the counter then took his coat off and draped it over his arm.
“Like I said, I have ways. My people trained me well.” Steven said as he lowered his hands and, not turning from the counter, resumed his work.
“Your people?” Richard asked. “You mean like the FBI?”
“Higher than that Rich.”
“The CIA?”
“Try the AIA…”
“The AIA," Richard said with a puzzled look about his face. "I’ve never heard of them.”
“The Alien Intelligence Alliance,” Steven said. “And if you’ve never heard of us that’s a good thing, it means we’re doing our job.”
“I thought you said you were going to lay low, what are you doing here?” Richard asked as he returned to the front foyer to hang up his coat.
“I am, and don’t worry about me, because when I lay low, I lay low low. People only see me when I want them to see me. I know how to get gone in a hurry Rich, and when I’m gone, I’m gone to nowhere. You don’t have to worry about me.”
“Ok, so why are you here? I wouldn’t consider my apartment very low, low.”
“Yea neither would I Einstein, I came for you. You should be worried about yourself, not me.”
“Wait a second, are you here to…to?”
“To kill you? No relax pal, I’m not here to kill you, the one other person in the world that I know can help me. I’m not going to kill you. I’m here to help your sorry butt.”
“You might be surprised, I’m not as helpless as you might think.”
“They’re watching you, you know.”
“The cops?”
“They…” Steven said as he rolled his eyes upward as if to the heavens.
“They are? Why, how? What have I got to do with all this?”
“You can see them, just like me. That’s when they started hunting me, as soon as they realized I could see them. You, you’re different, they want to study you, contain you, but most of all, they want to use you to get to me. I gotta help you Pal.” Steven sounded almost friendly for a moment. “You gotta operate in the open, and I respect that choice, but I didn’t want to disappear without helping you somehow.”
“So what are you planning… no wait, better question, what are you building in my kitchen? You’re not making a bomb are you? Please tell me you’re not cooking up some kind of bomb?”
“Chill… it’s not a bomb, it’s just a secret little recipe that I remembered from training. It helped me escape from communist China one time. Trying to get low in China is kinda tough for a 6 foot American, let me tell you.”
He raised a hand up over his shoulder to pass something to Richard.
“Here take this…”
A closer inspection revealed that it was a small blue pill. Richard took it and was just about to put it in his mouth when Steven stopped him.
“Wait! You don’t want to do that! I meant take it and hang onto it, not take it like swallow it.”
Richard pulled it away from his lips.
“What is it?”
“Well I guess you just proved that you trust me, you really are all in…” Steven said as he began putting some things away. “You would have chowed down on that not knowing if it was super potion or deadly poison.”
“Then what is it already?”
“It’s a getaway plan, it’s for the direst of situations. If you know they’re onto you and there’s no way to get away.”
“Is it poison, like cyanid, will it kill me?”
“Most likely no… you take it and chew it up in your mouth and swallow what you can. It’ll make you spew out everything in your stomach. I mean barf your guts out like there’s no tomorrow.” Steven still hadn’t turned around and was now wiping down the counter. “We use these as a form of distraction to buy some time. You start throwing up on someone’s shoes all of a sudden and I promise you they’re gonna lose their grip on you and give you enough leverage to land a good elbow to the gut or knee to the groin. Otherwise if you want to play it nice and just disappear, it should buy you some unsupervised time in the restroom. If you can teach yourself how to take apart the flush handle of a toilet at the same time you’re throwing up in it, you can escape from an
yone, anywhere.”
Richard suddenly imagined himself wearing a vomit stained shirt while jimmying off the handle of a toilet, and sliding out the large metal flush arm before sneaking up on an unsuspecting Chinese guard standing outside of the restroom and stabbing him in the neck with a toilet handle. Vomit speckles covered his mouth… He suddenly snapped out of the day dream and quickly shook the idea out of his head.
“Put that somewhere safe and use it when the time comes. You got me?” Steven asked.
Richard nodded and stuck the pill in his shirt breast pocket.
Without turning from the counter, Steven stopped him. “I hope that’s not your plan. That’s not only the first place they’ll check, but it’s also the quickest way to crush your getaway plan.”
He put some pots in the sink and then picked up a washcloth to dry his hands.
“Either put it in a plastic bag and tape it up next to your nut sack or you could carry it in that pill bottle you’re always carrying around. The nut sack is less likely to be detected, but the pill bottle may be easier to get to in an emergency, I’ll leave it up to you.”
Richard went back to his coat and got the prescription bottle from his pocket. He opened it and put the single blue pill in with the rest of his medication. He heard the click of his balcony door as he put the bottle back in his coat. He turned around and found himself unsurprised to see that Steven had left without a trace.
Richard walked to the kitchen, which was now clean and appeared as though no one had been there, then he went to the balcony door and found that Steven had even locked it before he left. He unlocked it, opened it and went out onto the balcony. The early evening air was full of the sounds of traffic and strangely a few hoot owls could be heard from a rooftop somewhere.It was a small balcony, only wide enough for a single deck chair and a small plastic patio end table. There was a black rot iron fence going around it. Richard looked over the edge.